The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. I, Nos. 1-4, 1867Various
Philosophy
The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. I, Nos. 1-4, 1867
Various
Philosophy -- Periodicals
36. But there must also be a sufficient reason for truths contingent, or
truths of fact—that is, for the series of things diffused through the
universe of creatures—or else the process of resolving into particular
reasons might run into a detail without bounds, on account of the
immense variety of the things of nature, and of the infinite division of
bodies. There is an infinity of figures and of movements, present and
past, which enter into the efficient cause of my present writing; and
there is an infinity of minute inclinations and dispositions of my soul,
present and past, which enter into the final cause of it.
37. And as all this detail only involves other anterior or more detailed
contingencies, each one of which again requires a similar analysis in
order to account for it, we have made no advance, and the sufficient or
final reason must be outside of the series of this detail of
contingencies,[4] endless as it may be.
38. And thus the final reason of things must be found in a necessary
Substance, in which the detail of changes exists eminently as their
source. And this is that which we call GOD.
39. Now this Substance being a sufficient reason of all this detail,
which also is everywhere linked together, _there is but one God, and
this God suffices_.
40. We may also conclude that this supreme Substance, which is Only,[5]
Universal, and Necessary—having nothing outside of it which is
independent of it, and being a simple series of possible beings—must be
incapable of limits, and must contain as much of reality as is possible.
41. Whence it follows that God is perfect, perfection being nothing but
the magnitude of positive reality taken exactly, setting aside the
limits or bounds in that which is limited. And there, where there are no
bounds, that is to say, in God, perfection is absolutely infinite.
42. It follows also that the creatures have their perfections from the
influence of God, but they have their imperfections from their proper
nature, incapable of existing without bounds; for it is by this that
they are distinguished from God.
43. It is true, moreover, that God is not only the source of existences,
but also of essences, so far as real, or of that which is real in the
possible; because the divine understanding is the region of eternal
truths, or of the ideas on which they depend, and without Him there
would be nothing real in the possibilities, and not only nothing
existing, but also nothing possible.
44. At the same time, if there be a reality in the essences or
possibilities, or in the eternal truths, this reality must be founded in
something existing and actual, consequently in the existence of the
necessary Being, in whom essence includes existence, or with whom it is
sufficient to be possible in order to be actual.
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